2005_11_01_archive

In the grip of something

As I read David Lodge's Author, Author, the mystery of Henry James'

imagination preoccupied me. In the novel, he writes his books with

remarkable speed and fluency. So speedy, in fact, that one appears

between two of Lodge's own sentences. Yet James seems to have done

little else but write and move politely within polite society. Where

did it all come from?

I'm now reading JM Coetzee's Slow Man. From the reviews, you will

surely know the main character Paul Rayment is visited by Elizabeth

Costello, the odd, austere novelist from the landmark, eponymous

novel. She tells Rayment that he came to her. There wasn't anything

she could do. He came to her as one presumes characters come to

novelists. Just after she arrives, she comments on his pathetic

infatuation with Marijana, the day nurse. "You are in the grip of

something, aren't you?" she says.

These words are also used to describe David Lurie's reckless pursuit

of the young student Melanie in Disgrace, Coetzee's second Booker

Prize winning novel. Lurie knows it is reckless but he is "in the grip

of something".

What I like about Coetzee, and why each new book excites my interest,

is because the grip is the subject. Where does it come from? Where

does it end?

at 5:28 PM 2 comments

December 2005 October 2005 Home

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

My Shelfari Bookshelf

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

email address

Please contact me, Stephen Mitchelmore, at steve dot mitchelmore at

gmail dot com

Literary and other links

* British Literary Blogs

* ReadySteadyBook blog

* Spurious

* Book Depository: Editor's Corner

* The Literary Saloon

* The Existence Machine

* The Reading Experience

* Scarecrow Comment

* Guardian Books Blog

* The Quarterly Conversation

* KCRW Bookworm

* BookForum

* wood s lot

* Mountain 7

* Todd Colby's Glee Farm

* Three per cent

* Tales from the Reading Room

* The Bibliophilic Blogger

* The Penguin Blog

* TLS: Peter Stothard

* Mary Beard

* Nomadics: Pierre Joris

* Lenin's Tomb

* Dispatches from Zembla

* Waggish

More literary blogs

* Jonathan Swift's Journal to Stella

* The Best of New Writing on the Web

* John Self's Asylum

* Anatomy of Melancholy

* The Truth About Lies

* Nigel Beale: Nota Bene

* Thomas McGonigle's ABC of Reading

* Vertigo: Collecting WG Sebald

* Un Arbre dans la Ville

* The Wooden Spoon

* The Joyful Knowing

* The Reader Onliine

* In Abstentia Out

* Jacob Russell's Barking Dog

* eNotes Book Blog

* Diderot's Diary

Book buying

* *Steve's Wishlist*

* The Book Depository - Cheap books and free delivery

* Booksprice - price comparisons

* Abebooks

Favoured author sites

* Maurice Blanchot

* Thomas Bernhard (German equivalent)

* Gabriel Josipovici

* Peter Handke (German equivalent)

* Princeton Dante Project

* Proust: Temps Perdu

* The Kafka Project

* Charlotte Mandell

* Noam Chomsky

* John Pilger

Blog Archive

* February 2008 (1)

* January 2008 (10)

* December 2007 (26)

* November 2007 (28)

* October 2007 (16)

* September 2007 (24)

* August 2007 (15)

* July 2007 (17)

* June 2007 (11)

* May 2007 (23)

* April 2007 (11)

* March 2007 (24)

* February 2007 (27)

* January 2007 (21)

* December 2006 (9)

* November 2006 (24)

* October 2006 (21)

* September 2006 (19)

* August 2006 (15)

* July 2006 (33)

* June 2006 (17)

* May 2006 (24)

* April 2006 (17)

* March 2006 (18)

* February 2006 (15)

* January 2006 (8)

* December 2005 (8)

* November 2005 (10)

* October 2005 (7)

* September 2005 (14)

* August 2005 (14)

* July 2005 (8)

* June 2005 (15)

* May 2005 (11)

* April 2005 (13)

* March 2005 (9)

* February 2005 (7)

* January 2005 (16)

* December 2004 (2)

* November 2004 (4)